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Oahu Transit Services5/31/2005
at a claim for negligent entrustment of an automobile was not covered by a homeowner's insurance policy. In HIG, the insured had entrusted her car to an unlicensed minor driver. The unlicensed minor driver was involved in an accident with two other cars, resulting in the deaths of five minors and serious injury to another, and the survivor and the decedents' estates brought actions against the owner for negligent entrustment. HIG, 68 Haw. at 338-39, 713 P.2d at 429. This court held that the insured's homeowner's policy, which contained an automobile exclusion, did not entitle the insured to a defense or indemnification:
t may be negligence to entrust an automobile to an incompetent driver, see Restatement (Second) of Torts ยง 308 (1965), and the entrustment . . . was an act separate from [the driver's] operation of the car. Still, the conduct of [the owner] and her son relative to the fatal accident was separate "only in the fact that it preceded the collision." Safeco Insurance Co. v. Gilstrap, 141 Cal. App. 3d 524, 527, 190 Cal. Rptr. 425, 427 (1983). For it is clear "that negligent entrustment [of an automobile] is irrelevant unless the person to whom is entrusted acts in a negligent manner (creates an unreasonable risk) and in fact inflicts injury as the result of such conduct." Bankert v. Threshermen's Mutual Insurance Co., 110 Wis. 2d 469, 476, 329 N.W.2d 150, 153 (1983); Correira v. Liu, 28 Haw. 145, 148 (1924). Or as the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has put it, the "'negligent entrustment' [of an automobile] as a distinct and specific cause of action is not exclusive of, but, rather, is derived from the more general concepts of ownership, operation, and use of a motor vehicle." Barnstable County Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Lally, 374 Mass. 602, 605-06, 373 N.E.2d 966, 969 (1978).
Id. at 340-41, 713 P.2d at 430-31. (footnotes omitted) (some alterations in original and some added). Just as in Scottsdale Insurance, the cause of the underlying accident in HIG was negligent use of an automobile, such that the automobile exclusion barred coverage. See also Fortune v. Wong, 68 Haw. 1, 12, 702 P.2d 299, 307 (1985) (holding that a homeowner's policy did not provide coverage for the insured's vicarious parental liability where that liability arose from the negligent operation of a motor vehicle by the insured's minor child).
In this case, all of Muramoto's injuries arose from the use of an automobile and all liability faced by OTS and the City stems from that use. Therefore, based on Scottsdale Insurance, HIG, and Fortune v. Wong, OTS and the City are not entitled to indemnification. Similarly, Northfield owed no duty to defend OTS or the City. Although the duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify, Sentinel Ins. Co., Ltd. v. First Ins. Co. of Hawaii, Ltd., 76 Hawaii 277, 287, 875 P.2d 894, 904 (1994), Muramoto's complaint alleges that his injuries arose from the use of an automobile; the complaint does not even mention the driver's unbuckling of Muramoto's wheelchair belt, but rather alleges that Muramoto's wheelchair moved and tipped while on route to the dialysis appointment and that Muramoto was injured as a result. Because the allegations contained in the complaint do not even raise the possibility of coverage, Northfield owed no duty to defend.
IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, we affirm the circuit court's March 18, 2003 first amended judgment.
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